Movies: Frank

Screenshot 2015-02-11 12.45.30I remember reading about this movie last year, when it was released in theaters. It seemed crazy, one of our greatest actors, Michael Fassbender, spending the whole movie in a giant baseball of a mask, as well as a movie about a guy in a rock band who wears a mask all the time (not just on stage).

It turns out, after seeing the movie on Netflix, that this is a music movie about integrity and relationships and ambition, like most music movies, but this one has an arch humor and a steady intelligence guiding it. The music is emblematic, each tune meant to show something in the context of the film (rather than as a song in its own right), and there aren’t too many songs. Instead we have characters who seethe with passion, jammed and jamming together in a somewhat challenging situation, which is where tempers and ardor and hatred flare.

Recommended to those who generally like Sundance hits, or at least who don’t hate them.

It seems that Frank’s head is derived from a comic character from UK TV in the 1980s named Frank Sidebottom.

Frank Sidebottom was the creation of a comic artist named Chris Sievey, now deceased, about whom a documentary has been made. Frank, the movie, was obviously inspired by Sievey’s creation, but seems to be a reimagining of Sievey, rather than a rehash. All very weird and wonderful. This is a trailer for Being Frank, the Chris Sievey story.

2 thoughts on “Movies: Frank

  1. This is great Peter. Love all this, plus, I just cannot get into most new movies (we have had Gravity, Dallas Buyers Club, Captain Phillips, etc on our DVR for months, with little or no inclination to watch).

    Maybe Jack (in the Box) deserves some big head credit?

    I am just happy something named Frank that is not that insipid comic/impersonator on Fox might be usurped by a namesake with a paper mache head.

  2. I would watch this, but I imagine hoops must be jumped through to find it.

    Lawr, I didn’t see Gravity. Captain Phillips is OK. But Dallas Buyers Club is really good.

    You’re welcome,

    Roger Stevebert

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